Battle at the Box Office 10/10

The Girl on the Train managed to take the top spot for the first full weekend of October but performed a little bit below expectations with $24.7 million. The closest comparison is obviously Gone Girl from 2014, which featured a similarly twisty, dark, sexy tone but that movie had much better reviews and took in $37 million for it’s opening weekend and it’s nowhere near the opening for 50 Shades of Grey, which took in $85 million. Girl on the Train did not have the most stellar reviews, so it could drop pretty quickly if word of mouth is bad.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children dropped to second place with another $15 million, putting it up to $51 million for it’s two weeks out.

Deepwater Horizon dropped to third place from second last week with another $11.8 million, bringing it up to $38 million for it’s two weeks out.

Magnificent Seven and Storks rounded out the top 5 with the former crossing over $75 million for it’s three weeks out.

The Birth of a Nation did not perform as well as Fox Searchlight probably would have liked after paying a record amount for the movie at Sundance and the controversy around star/director Nate Parker probably didn’t help either. The movie opened in sixth place with $7.1 million, which is just about $1 million more than 12 Years a Slave made when it opened wide in half as many theaters back in 2013 and was lower than this summer’s Free State of Jones as well.

Middle School: Worst Years of My Life opened in seventh place with $6.9 million, which is worse than all the Diary of a Wimpy Kid movies and also other kid focused book adaptations like Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

Masterminds, after having one of the worst openings of all time last weekend, almost dropped out of the top ten in it’s second weekend, barely holding onto ninth place with $4.1 million